Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Our courage is greater than our fear (#2686)

     There are always examples of how we shrink from doing great things. The list is long and tumultuous. However, despite the metaphorical anchor fear restricts us in our necessary forward movement, occasionally our courage conquers our fear and we jump ahead in a magnificent way. The latest was electing our first African/American president. The moon landing and the Mars rovers also come to mind. We are not a species who are always denied our true nature. I speak often in this blog about how we are biological data processors with the ability to reason, analyze and conclude with memory, comprehensively. Having these attributes should make it obvious that we are a species destined to expand our livable environments and explore new ways to make it so.
     Yet we are also afflicted with a fear that dangerously moves beyond caution. Doing nothing or even wanting to go back to less enlightened days is the evidence of such fear. As a community of people it is difficult to allay everyone's fears at the same time. Which is why we need to allay our own fears. We cannot be led to live as a human being instead of living like an inanimate object. We have to lead ourselves to know what we are capable of and then work to make it come true. Life is about trial and error and success and failure. Living as a neutral being just happy to be alive is a negation of our natural instincts. Why be less than human? Why indeed! Fear is why and fear will win if we don't conquer our own version of it.
     I am not saying go out and be reckless, I am saying don't hold back in reserve that which you can reasonably express in thought and behavior right now. Our courage, when employed, is an empowering and satisfying emotional experience. Our courage allows us to grow in ways that we need to expand and mature in wisdom. We cannot let circumstances and situations dictate to us how we must live. We have to do the choosing and there is only one way that can be done. We each have to decide to stand for ourselves. We have to let ourselves be our own biological data processor. We have to live as who we really are and quit wasting time just living to exist.

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